REPORTS ON CHURCH STATUS (Loan and Swap)

by kaythegardener, USA, Tuesday, December 08, 2009, 20:25 (1263 days ago) @ PeterR

Dear Peter,
When I was in the military parish in overseas Alaska, every year, a status report on the parish doings had to be prepared to update the Bishop. When in a civilian parish, I mentioned this report, the parish council members seemed surprised, but the deacon & pastor wasn't.
After all, as I said, how can the Bishops give a good ad limina report if they don't know what is going on by eyewitness accounts? Remember, the Bishops live in the Chancery and all they get from the regular parishioners are grump letters from the discontented to represent the state of the parish? No doubt clerical reports all downplayed the decline of all indicators of vocations, church attendance, etc as only "temporary aberrations" for decades, until the Curia was ready to scapegoat Vatican II itself!
I would suspect that there continue to be no channels whatsoever for any lay input to the status reports made to the Vatican, except the private ear available to significant donors of course, even though lay members are the vast majority of the People of God.
If hospitals, restaurants, or even universities, etc & other businesses make regular surveys of the users of their services in order not to be blindsided by new developments in the marketplace, then why can't the Church?

OR DO THEY THINK THAT IT IS RUN ONLY FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE HIERARCHS???

John XXIII showed that the Pope could run the Church and even an Ecumenical Council, but still project a humble attitude of service to all...
a truth that his successors have seemed to have missed completely.